Page 14 of Reckless Curves
“Fine. But Tom, you can’t expect to simply walk into my—our,” she patted Connor on the head, “lives and expect to run everything. I have been on my own with Connor for three years.”
He bit back the words ‘whose fault is that’, because both of them were to blame. “Just promise me you won’t dismiss the idea. We don’t have to get married right away. We could date and see…”
She hesitated before nodding, then added, “But I’m not promising anything.”
Tom gave her a last, direct stare, winked at Connor and left her apartment. Jogging down the stairs of the dilapidated apartment building, Tom smiled to himself as he thought about the sexy mother of his child.
He looked up and down the street and knew even if Kendra wouldn’t marry him; she would not remain living in this neighborhood. He’d lived in a rough area and no child of his would go through what he went through, not when he had the money and space to give his son a fabulous and safe upbringing.
Tom remembered how often Marcus complained about Kendra’s stubbornness to do things on her own. He could empathize with her need to be in control, given how her cancer had taken all the control from her. But this was about all their lives. He wanted a relationship with his son that was better than the one he had with his father. She would be tough to convince.
He’d grown up in a single-parent household and it sucked. When his mother had walked out, he’d felt torn between two people he loved the most in the world. One parent always lost. He didn’t want to be the loser, but he wouldn’t wish that on Kendra either.
He glanced at his watch. Speaking of fathers, he should pop by the hospital and see how dad was doing. It was hard to stay angry and bitter at the shell of the man who was lying in the hospital struggling after his liver transplant. Somehow it made Tom even angrier that he couldn’t go on hating his father.
He swore Connor would never end up hating him. His son. He had a son.
He had wracked his brains all night trying to think of a better solution. How else could he have his son in his life in the way he wanted? He saw how kids got shoved from house to house, from parent to parent; and what would happen when Kendra met someone she wanted to marry? What if they wanted to take Connor out of state? Coldness swept over him. What kind of relationship would he have with his son then?
Yet, he’d be giving up his plan to never marry and risk ending up a part-time dad, anyway. The idea of a divorce scared him as much as losing a chance to know his son did. But the longing from his shitty childhood, that he’d always kept hidden deep inside, to belong to a happy family like most other kids, rose like an avenging dragon to fire him up. He longed to give his kid what he’d never had—a loving, perfect family—if they even existed? Maybe then he would lose his feeling of worthlessness.
If there was a better solution to give his boy the dream of the perfect family, he didn’t know what it was. This was the only way that he could see a way ahead for him. He had to at least try.
Now all he needed to do was convince Kendra they should be a family. She wanted love. She had lovedhimonce. And it had sent him fleeing. But not this time. Surely, he could make her fall in love with him again?
So he would fight for his son and try.
